Wilderness.org - road restorationhttp://wilderness.org/taxonomy/term/2034
enRep. Sanchez Introduces Legislation to Create New Jobs And Rehabilitate Forests and Parks http://wilderness.org/press-release/rep-sanchez-introduces-legislation-create-new-jobs-and-rehabilitate-forests-and-parks
<div class="field-group-format group_meta field-group-div group-meta speed-fast effect-none"><div class="field field-name-field-release-date field-type-datetime field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" property="dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2009-12-16T00:00:00-05:00">Dec 16, 2009</span></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><strong>LOS ANGELES</strong> &ndash; <a href="sanchez-proposes-creating-jobs-fixing-forests">Congresswoman Linda Sanchez (D-39) has introduced multi-billion dollar legislation</a> that will help create new jobs, remove deteriorating roads that damage forest ecosystems and provide emergency appropriations for the National Park Service, National Forest Service, and Federal Highway Administration for fiscal year 2010.</p>
<p>Sanchez&rsquo; bill, The Public Lands Rehabilitation and Job Creation Act, H.R. 4291, will address years of underfunding for public lands and a large number of deferred maintenance projects that can improve our country&rsquo;s public lands.</p>
<p>The Wilderness Society is particularly supportive of Sanchez&rsquo; inclusion of language that will address the expansive network of roads in the nation&rsquo;s forests that lead to increased soil erosion, degraded water quality, excessive noise, and fragmentation of wildlife habitats. Some of these roads were built for resource extraction and are now obsolete, while others were never authorized but created by off-road vehicles driving cross-country&mdash;a practice that will soon be banned.</p>
<p>&ldquo;If passed, Rep. Sanchez&rsquo; act would create desirable outdoor jobs, provide better facilities for people using the parks and forests, and protect fish and wildlife that live there,&rdquo; said Matt Dietz, an ecologist for The Wilderness Society. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a win-win-win situation.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The bill will fund:</p>
<ul>
<li>At least $100 million to identify outdated, unneeded, and damaging roads.</li>
<li>At least $100 million to restore land damaged by unauthorized roads.</li>
<li>The remaining $300 million may be used for any type of road work, including road maintenance and road decommissioning.</li>
</ul>
<p>In the fire-devastated San Gabriel Mountains, just north of Los Angeles, the Public Lands Rehabilitation and Job Creation Act may help restore some of the Angeles National Forest&rsquo;s destroyed or damaged road infrastructure and also create jobs for local communities.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Returning veterans hit hard by the high unemployment in the San Gabriel Valley will particularly benefit from jobs restoring the Angeles National Forest,&rdquo; said Irene Esparza Portillo, Executive Director of Project Amiga, a South El Monte social service agency that provides job training and placement for low-income communities across Los Angeles County. &ldquo;Veterans transition well into these outdoor jobs.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Other opportunities to improve roads, buildings, and other infrastructure exist in urban and rural areas across the nation, from the Theodore Roosevelt Birthplace in New York City and Fort Sumter in South Carolina to Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego and the Hiawatha National Forest in Michigan.</p>
<p>Founded in 1935, The Wilderness Society&rsquo;s mission is to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. From writing and passing the landmark Wilderness Act to winning lasting protection for more than 109 million acres of permanent wilderness across the country, The Wilderness Society is America&rsquo;s premier public lands conservation organization. Its 500,000 members and supporters are dedicated to protecting America&rsquo;s iconic wild lands through public education, scientific analysis and advocacy.</p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 17 Dec 2009 03:47:50 +0000102683 at http://wilderness.orghttp://wilderness.org/press-release/rep-sanchez-introduces-legislation-create-new-jobs-and-rehabilitate-forests-and-parks#commentsPutting forests to work: How removing old roads will help in climate battlehttp://wilderness.org/blog/putting-forests-work-how-removing-old-roads-will-help-climate-battle
<div class="field-group-format group_meta field-group-div group-meta speed-fast effect-none"><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Feb 18, 2010</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/bios/staff/josh-hicks">Josh Hicks</a></div></div></div></div><div class="field-group-format group_image field-group-div group-image speed-fast effect-none"><div class="field field-name-field-content-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/styles/blog_full/public/legacy/profiler/road-washout-USFSJPG.jpg?itok=08JJefCZ" alt="" title="An example of a Forest Service road in desperate need of removal. Courtesy USFS." /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-video field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"></div></div><div class="field field-name-media-description field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>An example of a Forest Service road in desperate need of removal. Courtesy USFS.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-credit field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Take a close look at our national forests and you will find that they are scarred by a vast network of unused roads left over from years past. This road system was born of industrial logging practices allowed decades ago, but today it&rsquo;s an outdated, crumbling and environmentally-harmful vestige on the land.</p>
<p>It&rsquo;s time to start removing these roads, not only because doing so will improve water quality and help decrease a massive maintenance backlog, but because it will give us one more tool in the fight against climate change.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="brief-carbon-and-roads ">new report</a> from The Wilderness Society, right-sizing the Forest Service road system could have benefits in terms of storing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide on our forests. In fact, removing unneeded roads could amount to the same as removing up to 8.8 million cars from the road for one year.</p>
<p>Wilderness Society researchers wanted to get an estimate of how much carbon could potentially be sequestered if the Forest Service were to permanently close and revegetate all of its unneeded roads. Turns out it&rsquo;s a lot &ndash; we approximate between 39.5-48.5 million metric tons &mdash; or the equivalent to removing 7.2-8.8 million cars from the road for one year. Put another way, it would be equivalent to locking up in a garage every car, truck, motorcycle, and SUV in the state of Colorado for two straight years.</p>
<p>Of course different types of forests have different carbon storage capabilities. Check out The Wilderness Society&rsquo;s <a href="brief-carbon-and-roads">briefing memo</a> for a regional breakdown. </p>
<p>These roads aren&rsquo;t just lines on a map. Think about it. A typical road in your neighborhood is several feet wide. Denude of vegetation, each mile of Forest Service road consumes about ten acres of wildlife habitat and, with 375,000 miles in its inventory, the acreage adds up fast. In fact, if the Forest Service were to obliterate all of the roads it no longer needs &mdash; which is projected at about 126,000 miles &ndash; we estimate it would be equivalent to revegetating an area larger than Rhode Island. That&rsquo;s a lot of land!</p>
<p>Many of these roads are abandoned or rarely used and don&rsquo;t receive any maintenance. As a result, these roads are literally falling apart resulting in massive amounts of sediment bleeding into our rivers and streams. Needless to say, these old abandoned logging roads cause serious impacts on water quality. Further, the road maintenance backlog alone is upwards of $10 billion which, any taxpayer must find nonsensical.</p>
<p>So let&rsquo;s talk about solutions. Legislators, policy makers, Forest Service leadership, and forest-level staff need to make the agency&rsquo;s road system ecologically and fiscally sustainable.</p>
<p><img width="300" height="225" src="/sites/default/files/legacy/userfiles/Revegetation-after-road-removal-in-BitterrootNationalForest-AdamSwitalski-WildlandsCPR.jpg" alt="Revegetation after road removal in Bitterroot National Forest. Photo by Adam Switalski, Courtesy Wildlands CPR." />The way to do this is for the Forest Service to first complete the necessary analysis for all of its roads to identify, forest-by-forest, which ones are no longer needed and can be revegetated. Then the agency should incorporate road decommissioning and revegetation into any climate change strategy it develops as it will serve as an effective strategy in climate change mitigation as well as adaptation to changing forest conditions.</p>
<p>Congress should consider the carbon sequestration potential of right-sizing the road system when providing oversight of agency progress towards addressing climate change. Congress should also incorporate the obliteration and revegetation of old, unneeded Forest Service logging roads into any climate change legislation it crafts.</p>
<p>In the end, right-sizing the agency&rsquo;s road system will serve as the roadmap to clean water, green jobs, enhanced wildlife habitat, larger roadless areas, and serves as another strategy to help in the fight against climate change. That&rsquo;s a lot of bang for the buck.</p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: smaller;">photos:</span></strong><span style="font-size: smaller;"><br />An example of a Forest Service road in desperate need of removal. Courtesy USFS.<br />Revegetation after road removal in Bitterroot National Forest. Photo by Adam Switalski, Courtesy Wildlands CPR.</span></p>
</div></div></div>Thu, 18 Feb 2010 23:26:43 +0000102919 at http://wilderness.orghttp://wilderness.org/blog/putting-forests-work-how-removing-old-roads-will-help-climate-battle#commentsVilsack vision for Forest Service focuses on restorationhttp://wilderness.org/blog/vilsack-vision-forest-service-focuses-restoration
<div class="field-group-format group_meta field-group-div group-meta speed-fast effect-none"><div class="field field-name-post-date field-type-ds field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Sep 14, 2009</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/bios/staff/josh-hicks">Josh Hicks</a></div></div></div></div><div class="field-group-format group_image field-group-div group-image speed-fast effect-none"><div class="field field-name-field-content-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://wilderness.org/sites/default/files/styles/blog_full/public/legacy/profiler/Gallatin-nf-montana-usfs.jpg?itok=eguK-ZCL" alt="" title="Gallatin National Forest, Montana. Courtesy USFS. " /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-video field-type-file field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"></div></div><div class="field field-name-media-description field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><p>Gallatin National Forest, Montana. Courtesy USFS.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-credit field-type-text-long field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"></div></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Restoration. That&rsquo;s a very important word to those of us who work in&nbsp; conservation. Following on decades of logging in our national forests &mdash; much of it unsustainable &mdash; considerable work is needed to restore the ecosystems our forests contain.</p>
<p>That&rsquo;s why I was especially excited to hear that watershed restoration is at the heart of the Obama Administration&rsquo;s vision for our national forests, as laid out by Agriculture Secretary Vilsack in August.</p>
<p>As someone who works with the Forest Service to help the agency find ways to address its over-sized and archaic transportation system in order to restore or wild rivers, wetlands and wildlife habitat and enhance backcountry recreation, I was heartened that Secretary Vilsack clearly pointed out that addressing the agency&rsquo;s road system will be a chief component of restoring our forests.</p>
<h3>The Problems Roads Cause</h3>
<p>There are some 380,000 miles of roads on our national forests, so many roads that, lined up end to end, they could take a person from the earth to the moon and half way back!</p>
<p>That road system was developed in the 1980&rsquo;s when timber production was huge. But timber demand from our national forests has diminished, and with it a need for all those roads &mdash; many of them now abandoned &mdash; leaving them in disrepair.</p>
<p>Today, our forests play a key role in keeping ecosystems intact, providing wildlife habitat, addressing climate change and in meeting the growing demand for recreation. The road system left over from decades ago is unnecessarily big and is falling apart, leading to a host of problems like fragmented wildlife habitat, endangered fish and sediment-laden drinking water.</p>
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<p>Today, with a $10 billion backlog in road maintenance, the Forest Service can only afford to adequately maintain about 20% of its transportation system. Every year that goes by, the backlog &mdash; along with the costs of impacted fisheries, waterways, and habitats &mdash; grows.</p>
<h3>Ridding our forests of roads</h3>
<p>Reducing the road system on national forests by a third, as proposed by the Forest Service eight years ago would lead to all sorts of benefits. For example, it would dramatically improve river and stream quality for fish, restore wildlife habitat, enhance the quiet, backcountry experience for hikers, campers and other non-motorized recreationists, result in hundreds of millions of dollars in long-term cost savings for taxpayers. It would also create green jobs in rural areas across the nation restoring forest health, expand roadless areas on our national forests by an estimated 10%, and help our forests adapt to the tremendous pressures and ecosystem shifts that are sure to come as a result of climate change. That&rsquo;s quite a list!</p>
<p>What's needed to make it happen?</p>
<p><em>First</em>, we need to know the condition of roads on each national forest, including an assessment of which roads are important, and which roads are causing environmental headaches.</p>
<p>We also need to make an honest assessment, forest by forest, of the size of a road system each can afford. With this information in hand, the Forest Service can make rational decisions about which roads to remove and where to focus their limited road-maintenance dollars. Fortunately, in the last two years, Congress began moving the Forest Service along the path toward watershed restoration, with $90 million appropriated for this work. With as many roads as the Forest Service has and does not need, this is good start.</p>
<p><em>Second</em>, the Forest Service should rewrite its management guidelines so that each forest has a mandate to restore ecosystems, watersheds, and wildlife habitat. Such a directive would enhance water quality, lessen pressures on threatened and endangered species, and help our forests be more resilient to climate change, all needs that are growing in the 21st century.</p>
<p><em>Third</em>, the Forest Service should create a high-level program for watershed restoration that has a budget, support from leadership in the Forest Service and Department of Agriculture, and targets for which the agency should be held accountable for meeting. In government, function often follows form.</p>
<p>In these times, our forests are facing growing pressures and demands. The environmental and fiscal problems associated with the agency&rsquo;s road network have been plaguing the Forest Service for decades. We are heartened by Secretary Vilsack&rsquo;s stated commitment to and dedicated leadership around addressing the Forest Service roads system. Now is not the time for feigned intentions and distant assurances. The Secretary has called on the agency for bold action, and we believe the agency can and must rise to the occasion.</p>
<p><strong><span style="font-size: smaller;">photo:</span></strong><span style="font-size: smaller;"> Gallatin National Forest, Montana. Courtesy USFS. </span></p>
</div></div></div>Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:28:17 +0000102283 at http://wilderness.orghttp://wilderness.org/blog/vilsack-vision-forest-service-focuses-restoration#comments